Hi guys,

So I'm sitting here looking at a blank screen, needing to write the 'background' section for my introduction. I don't know where to start! Any tips? I have the others bits under control i.e introducing my study/personal interest etc, I just don't know how I can do this bit!

Any advice is much appreciated!

Hi Button,

I don't know if this will help, but as I understand it, the background section basically provides the basic information someone would need to understand the problem area. This might be particularly relevant for an examiner who might not be directly in your precise field of study.

Does that make any sense?

As well as the background to the problem I'm addressing, I've also put my background and how I came to choose that particular project.

Thanks both! I think it's just troubling me a bit as where on earth do you start, and how do you find the most basic/key information, when you've written an 80,000 thesis?! I always struggle with this bit, maybe I just need to get stuck in!

my background was basically my 'statement of the problem' that I was investigating, which included national statistics, and a review of the general literature (about 2k words) this wasn't the lit review though, so it was more like a "what's been done on ice cream in general" then my lit review looked at a specific issue about eating ice cream and reviewed all the literature related to that.

I also provided a little section on how my PhD had evolved from the proposal and why - the examiners really liked that bit.